By Jason Van Horn

Pit has been missing in action for a long time, only making appearances in Nintendo fighting games from time-to-time, but he's back with his first full adventure in many years - Kid Icarus: Uprising. Out of all the 3DS games I've played, Kid Icarus: Uprising (KIU from here on) has had the longest shelf life for me in terms of staying power and refusing to remove itself from my 3DS slot. My love of the game didn't come easily, however, as I soon regretted my purchase as the game is a beast in the control department and easily the game's greatest flaw; there eventually comes a point though where that sweet spot is hit and everything flows smoothly and KIU becomes a blast to play.

Kid Icarus: Uprising follows the adventures of Pit as he's once again called into duty to take Medusa down. The original Kid Icarus didn't have much story back in the day, but Pit's new adventure is overflowing with narrative and story and jokes and there's so much content a great deal of it gets lost unfortunately. KIU features a handful of quick cutscenes after a level's boss fight, but most of the story is told through in-game dialogue and banter between Pit and various characters (mostly gods) that populate his universe. The problem is that all of this dialogue is happening when you're fighting and blasting countless enemies and a musical score is always going. The dialogue isn't a must to know what to do from one moment to the next, but it's central to the story and there are some great self-referential jokes spread throughout and they're laugh-out-loud funny too. I love when they reference the previous game or talk about what each other's Brain Age (another Nintendo game) is or talk about how a specific monster looks a lot like a Metroid. It's these great moments that often go unnoticed the first time around just because you're trying to not die, learn the ropes of how to play, and there's potentially so much happening on the screen.



KIU's story is told over 20+ chapters and there are some twists and turns along the way, though not always for the best. When I thought I was near the end and found out I was only halfway there, I was excited to be proving wrong in that KIU was going to be a short game. It wasn't long after that, however, a temporary enemy enters into the picture and in the grand scheme of things they just don't make that much sense and seem like they're just there to expand the game's single run length.

The game is focused on two main types of action: Air and Land battles. Air battles are short on-rail missions that go no longer than five-minutes (this element is worked into the story as Pit can only fly for five-minutes per flight or else his wings will go up in flames) and can be challenging, but aren't the greatest threat in the game. You'll fly around trying to shoot all the enemies you can for points and dodge projectiles as they come your way and that's basically it.

After the Air battle portion of the chapter is over, you'll find yourself on the ground, trying to make your way through the level and towards the boss at the end. The levels are linear for the most part, though that doesn't mean there aren't times where you'll be looking for a way to advance to the next area or try to find which way you're supposed to go (though the optional arrows certainly help a great deal). There is some "lite" platforming, but Pit is for the most part stuck to the ground unless he's jumping onto a grind rail or being launched into the air by a spring (there isn't normally a jump button). Besides walking around and doing battle with enemies, you'll also be able to pilot a handful of vehicles for short durations in order to take some of the larger waves of enemies out. Once you've made it to the end of the stage, it's time to go up against the big boss, which range from a giant rock to a phoenix to a kraken and more. The bosses as a whole are very well done and most of them require some trick and not necessarily full brute force in order to beat them.



The game doesn't feature a traditional difficulty system, as there is just the game to play, but there are ways to tweak your adventure. Before going into a chapter, you're able to take hearts you've earned and wager them in a betting system. By sacrificing hearts, you can raise the difficulty to terrifying levels, but because you're willing to give so much up, the rewards are greater as well (more hearts are earned and better items like weapons are dropped). If you die, however, the game will destroy your hearts and reduce the difficulty; furthermore if something is proving itself too hard you can always use hearts to turn the difficulty down as well. Most chapters in the game also feature difficulty rooms, which can only be accessed while you're attempting that chapter on at least the required difficulty rating. For example, if you come across a difficulty door of 7, you'll have to be playing the game on difficulty level 7 or higher in order to access it. The difficulty seems to be changed mostly in the number and frequency of enemy attacks in the Air battles, but the bosses are extra tough as well.

In order to tackle these higher difficulties, you'll need better weapons, and there are several categories and rankings; claws for example do more melee damage, but don't have a long distance, while something like a staff is great for shooting long distances but not the greatest at melee. Besides earning weapons as drops through playing chapters, you can also use hearts to buy weapons, and while there are often some great weapons they always come at a steep heart cost. My personal favorite way of gaining new, more powerful weapons is through the fusion system, as you can take two weapons, fuse them together, and hopefully get a better weapon in the process. I bought some weapons from the store, but the ones I did were all cheap and bought simply so that I could fuse them with something else. I guess you could say I'm addicted to fusing weapons. If there's a weapon you don't want to use or bother fusing, you can always just sell it for some hearts.

Besides the replayability of going through levels on higher difficulties to either accomplish a personal goal or load up on won hearts, there are also a lot of achievements and unlockables to keep you busy as well. The achievements come by way of pictures that are covered up by tiny little squares and each little square equals an achievement or goal you've accomplished; these can be anything from playing the game over so many hours, having so many different staff weapons, beating a chapter under a certain time, etc. You'll naturally unlock some of these achievements as you go, but some you'll have to unlock by actually looking to see what is required and going for it. Another thing to keep you busy are the entries for all the different enemies, bosses, and weapons in the game which you unlock by tossing idols to the gods. When you first start, placing one idol in will be enough to get you something new, but as you unlock things the odds of unlocking something new goes down; in order to increase your odds you'll have to start placing more idols in at once when you offer them up.



As I mentioned earlier, it's the game's controls that really hurt the game and many people will write it off quite quick unless they stick it out. The more you experiment and the more you keep playing, the more natural the controls get; they still don't work 100% of the time but I've managed to work with them. The game knows its controls aren't the greatest, so the game comes with a stand you can use (never bothered to use) and a multitude of options so that you can adjust and change controls to what works best for you, though after playing around the default controls were my preferred option. The Air battles work fine as it's all on rails and thus you don't have to worry about which way to look as the game will auto turn you when needed. The problem comes during Land battles when you enter the third dimension and suddenly positioning and camera view matters a lot. So you'll attack with the L-button, move with the thumb pad and dodge by quickly flicking it, and then you'll use the touch screen to not only point in the direction you want to shoot or attack, but you'll have to use the stylus to spin the screen like you would a globe (spinning takes the most work to get right and adjust to how fast or slow to spin). You'll also select abilities for Pit by using the directional pad and tapping on icons with the stylus.

You'll spend hours playing the single-player and personally speaking it's the main draw for me, but there's a pretty fun multiplayer mode in KIU as well. First up there's Free-For-All, where you go into a battle arena with up to a total of six players and battle it out with whatever weapon and abilities you have equipped. The second mode is Light vs Dark and puts two teams against each other in battle. If you die, you'll deplete your team's health bar, and the amount of health deducted is dependant on how powerful the weapon you are using is; the more powerful a weapon is the more life your team will lose. Once your team's health has been depleted, the last killed player will become either the light or dark version of Pit; these Pit characters are more powerful, but as soon as they're killed by the other team the game is over, so you have to judge when to actually attack people and focus on running away to stay alive.



When it comes to the technical aspects of the game Kid Icarus: Uprising has to be one of my favorite 3DS games in the graphics and sound departments. The game is full of action and everything is rendered lovingly and the 3D is used to great effect as well, even if I end up turning it off in the end regardless (battery drainer and making it hard to really move and not have the image go blurry). But you've got enemies who will block your screen, attacks that you can fly between (like rings) and other such 3D norms. The music is very fitting depending on the situation, the sound effects are varied and I dig some of the old school touches that harkens back to the 8-bit days of the original game, plus Nintendo did a great job at finding voice actors to handle the characters as I enjoy all the voices and never get tired of hearing them banter back-and-forth.
Time flies when playing Kid Icarus: Uprising as one of the achievements you can earn comes from playing the game over ten hours. I was shocked to find that I'd spent that much time with the game and this was at a point where I hadn't even finished the main campaign yet. Now that I have, there's still fun multiplayer to keep me company, achievements to unlock, new difficulties to try, the fusing of new weapons, and the unlocking of items. Ten hours in and it feels like I've barely scratched the surface of what the game fully has to offer. So yes, the controls can take a very long time to get used to, but I'm glad I stuck with it as it's one of the better videogame purchases I've made in the last few months.

Rating: 4 out of 5

http://kidicarus.nintendo.com/